Chapter 7 - The Flood Tunnel
The water rose to Daniel’s ankles within seconds.
Cole ordered the team back toward the gate, but the gate had locked automatically.
Reed struck the control panel.
“No power.”
The water climbed past Daniel’s knees.
He checked the tracker.
Luke’s signal was moving deeper into the tunnels.
“They’re taking the children away.”
“We cannot follow until we stop the water,” Cole said.
Daniel opened Rebecca’s notebook beneath the light of his phone.
Several pages described the storm shelter’s original drainage system.
Rebecca had drawn a wheel beside the words:
MANUAL RELEASE BELOW CHAPEL.
“If we open the release valve, the water should drain toward the lake,” Daniel said.
“That is in the opposite direction from Luke.”
“We’ll drown before we reach him if we don’t do it.”
Reed and Daniel moved through the eastern passage while Cole remained with the officers at the gate.
The water reached Daniel’s waist.
They entered a circular chamber beneath the chapel. A rusted wheel was mounted to a pipe in the wall.
Reed tried turning it.
It did not move.
Together, they forced the wheel until metal screamed inside the wall.
The water changed direction.
A powerful current pulled toward an opening in the floor.
Daniel lost his footing and struck the wall. His phone fell into the water, but Reed caught it before it vanished through the drain.
The screen remained active.
Luke’s red dot stopped.
Then the microphone transmitted a loud crash.
Oliver shouted, “Run!”
Luke’s breathing became fast and uneven.
Daniel grabbed the phone.
“Luke, keep moving.”
Though his son could not hear him, Daniel repeated it anyway.
“Keep moving, buddy. I’m coming.”
The water dropped below their knees.
Reed found a maintenance ladder leading upward.
They climbed through a hatch and emerged inside the chapel, behind the damaged organ.
The hidden passage confirmed Daniel’s suspicion.
The visible cellar door was not the true entrance. It was designed to trap searchers while the children were moved through another tunnel.
Cole and the team returned from below through the administration stairwell.
“We found a secondary exit beneath the dining hall,” she said. “Fresh tire tracks lead from it.”
“They may have moved Luke into a vehicle.”
Daniel checked the tracker.
The red dot remained underground.
“No. He’s still here.”
A deputy entered the chapel carrying Rex.
“We found this outside the cellar.”
Daniel took the dinosaur.
The stitching on its stomach had been cut.
“They searched the toy.”
“But Luke removed the tracker first,” Cole said.
A noise sounded outside the locked cellar door.
Three knocks.
A pause.
Three more.
Daniel dropped beside it.
“Luke!”
“Dad?”
Luke’s voice came through the metal.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t open it.”
“Why?”
“There’s someone on the stairs.”
At that moment, a figure appeared in the chapel doorway wearing a raincoat.
Cole ordered the person into the light.
Instead, the figure reached toward the electrical switch.
Darkness consumed the chapel.
The cellar lock slammed.
Luke screamed.
The tracker began moving rapidly toward the dining hall.
Daniel understood the trick.
A speaker beneath the cellar had played a recording of Luke’s voice.
His real son was still being moved through the lower tunnel.
Daniel ran toward the organ.
Behind him, officers forced open the cellar door.
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The room beneath it was empty except for a speaker, a bloodless strip of torn fabric and a message painted on the wall.
DANIEL MERCER KILLED HIS WIFE.
